title: Thermal phase transition behavior of lipid layers on a single human corneocyte cell.
abstract: We have improved the selected area electron diffraction method to analyze the dynamic structural change in a single corneocyte cell non-invasively stripped off from human skin surface. The improved method made it possible to obtain reliable diffraction images to trace the structural change in the intercellular lipid layers on a single corneocyte cell during heating from 24°C to 100°C. Comparison of the results with those of synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments on human stratum corneum sheets revealed that the intercellular lipid layers on a corneocyte cell exhibit essentially the same thermal phase transitions as those in a stratum corneum sheet. These results suggest that the structural features of the lipid layers are well preserved after the mechanical stripping of the corneocyte cell. Moreover, electron diffraction analyses of the thermal phase transition behaviors of the corneocyte cells that had the lipid layers with different distributions of orthorhombic and hexagonal domains at 24°C suggested that small orthorhombic domains interconnected with surrounding hexagonal domains transforms in a continuous manner into new hexagonal domains.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Kwansei Gakuin University, 2-1 Gakuen, Sanda, Hyogo 669-1337, Japan. Electronic address: t.imai@kwansei.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Imai
authors.forename: Hiromitsu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakazawa
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kato
mesh_terms: D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000737:chemistry; D004583:Electrons; D000078404:Epidermal Cells; D004817:Epidermis / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*; D008297:Male; D044367:Phase Transition; D013696:Temperature; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids
keywords: Corneocyte cell; Human stratum corneum; Intercellular lipid; Low flux electron diffraction; Synchrotron X-ray diffraction; Thermal phase transition behavior